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[cajobportal Insights] How does your organisation react to mistakes

During prayers in the church, his phone rang accidentally. The pastor & the worshipers scolded him after prayer for interrupting the silence… You could see the shame, embarrassment & humiliation on his face as he walked out.He never stepped his foot in the church ever again

He went to a pub.He spilled his drink by accident, the waiter apologized, gave him a napkin to clean himself up, the waiter also mopped the floor & offered him a complementary drink..He never stopped going there since.

You can make a difference by how you treat people

I am sure you would have come across this as a whats-app forward

Extrapolate the message to the current times and it becomes pertinent to reflect on how an organisation reacts once employees make mistakes

In the aftermath of their discovery, either self or by others, Are employees fired or does the organisation stand by them during the turmoil?

The former ED of Tata Sons speaks about an instance during his HUL days when he was Director (Exports). A sum of INR 1 crore had vanished out of the textiles business. He cites his dilemma about whether

a) he should wait and let more details sink in

b) make additional trades to compensate for the loss or

c) walk upto his boss – Dr. Ashok Ganguly and admit that he had goofed it up and needed help.

He courageously chose the last option and was able to emerge stronger from the situation

Can managers be trained to admit a position of weakness and can organisations have enabling systems to help them during the stress ?

If that happens, we will not have to worry about skeleton in the closet that are hidden by employees for fear of reprimand. The same skeletons , be it red-flags in audit reports and credit ratings, be it unreported NPAs or acute liquidity problems . These are now posing systemic risks to the economy in the recent Punjab National Banks,Yes Banks and ILFSs and could have been avoided if we had a more accommodative stance towards mistakes detected early so that the contagion effect could have been minimised